


Stallo

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Finland (Country), First Time, Folklore, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Minor Violence, Murder Mystery, Mythology - Freeform, Romance, Spiritual Leaders, Supernatural Elements, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6480298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnish Lapland, 1723. Arthur Pendragon, son of Lagman and ultimate village authority Uther Pendragon, is charged by his father to keep an eye on the Northerners descending on his town for market season. Because the new arrivals have strange traditions and are of new conversion to Christianity, suspicion is rife against them. Supernatural events bring disruption to the enclave and Arthur closer to the Northerners' spirtitual leader, a man known among the Finns by the name of his totem, the merlin bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stallo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merlocked18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merlocked18/gifts).



> My thanks to Crideon for beta reading this, for her kind suggestion, and her lovely mail exchanges. I couldn't have been happier to have had you as proof reader!
> 
> To Merlocked, for being lovely, and kind with her art, and amazingly talented to boot. This is not exactly the modern Finland you might originally have envisioned, but I hope you like it! But you don't really have to read it if you don't have the time or it isn't your cuppa. It's just an homage!

Ranua, Finnish Lapland, 1723

 

Water runs over and in between ice patches, meandering downstream, passing under a stone ledge and flowing over rocks until the brook widens and cuts across a plain. Right before it does, it deviates. The currents wash over an inert body, soaking his skin and clothes, softening the leather of his boots, worrying away at the soil staining his soles, making his flesh soggy, wan. By the bank blood stains the mud. It does so in drops and smears, but the stream has already blotted the crimson away. Some blotches remain by the rock rising to the left of the corpse; a few smudges stain the grass blades shaking in the wind.

A bird lands in the shallows and picks at the streaks of silver shimmering under the surface. When it fails to catch anything, it crows in a chant that echoes along the stretch of land.

It's a call that reaches far, far north.

 

****

Snow swirls up in clusters. Encompassing the town from end to end, grey clouds sit low on the horizon line. The clean line of the church steeple disappears into a dense charcoal mass while the market stall awnings flap in the wind, their poles sinking deep into black snow. The air is so cold villagers get frost spots on their cheeks and their noses turn red, their nostrils sticking together like conjoined flesh. Shawls and cloaks weighing their backs, the people move slowly, trudge ahead, their feet leaving deep marks in the ice. All but for the group making their way towards the yard fronting the lagman's house.

They wear reds and green, brown tanned leather, and reindeer fur. The collars, sleeves and hems of their robes ripple with decorations, squares and triangles. They bristle with interconnecting lines stitched in bright colours. Their boots round at the tip.

“The Northerners are coming,” Arthur says, straightening away from the fence he's been busy repairing since a storm knocked it down. “And it looks like they want to talk to you.”

Father wraps his palm around the knob of his cane, fisting it till his knuckles go white. “I won't countenance those people.”

“Father,” Arthur says, putting the hammer down, “you can't refuse them shelter.”

“I most definitely can.” Father's lips thin till they're nothing more than a narrow fissure on his face. “And that's what I'll do.”

Arthur's heard the worst about the Northerners too, and though he believes some of it, he doesn't think refusing them their rights will foster peace in the village. “Father, we'll all be better served if we allow them to put up here. They'll soon be gone either way. They always are.”

Arthur can see that Father wants to speak, but he's stopped by the arrival of the group.

It's a large one and pretty motley, made up of women of all ages, children, young men and old men. A lad Arthur's age steps forward. He has razor-edgedheekbones cut sharper by the blush the keen wind put on them, eyes that look like a winter morning and dark hair that stick out of his cap. He has a staff too, which he drives deep into the ground when he addresses Arthur's father. “I'm Rievsakhábak, of the Lule folk, but your people call me Merlin. I gather you're the Lagman here.” He speaks Swedish as if he knows where the Lagman's from without need of asking.

“I am,” Father says, after too long a silent spell. “What do you and your people want?”

“Permission to settle for the winter to trade.” The man stands stock still, shoulders pulled all the way back in spite of the cold. He studies Arthur's father with frank intent. “We have come with merchandise and wish to do business with your people.”

“There's not enough housing.” Father adjusts his scarf so it covers his chest fully. “Try the next village.”

“But by the time we get there in this weather, market time will be over.” The man indicates the markets stalls that have been erected on the village green. “Our coming will have been pointless.”

“That's your problem,” Father says, “not mine.”

“We need to trade.” The man's face stiffens. “We don't need housing. We can build tents in the green.”

“That'll clutter it.” Father pushes his lips together. “I won't have that. You'd only be of damage to us.”

“I assure you we won't.”

Father's eyes flash. “I've been appointed guardian of the law by the Ting.” He pulls on the gloves that were in his pocket and adds, “And I'm going to protect our community from law breakers.”

“My people and I,” the man says, his mouth getting lines at the corners, “are not law breakers. We've come in peace.”

“I don't believe you. Your lot is untrustworthy, your practices--” Father eyes the staff the man is carrying. It's birch, twisted, thick. It looks like the sort of ornament shamans carry, though, of course, they don't exist, not anymore. “--dubious, and your adherence to the rule of law even more so.”

“We've never broken the law of the land.” The man's fingers whiten around the staff. “We have our own customs but that's got nothing to do with yours.”

Arthur can see how badly this can go. If they make enemies of these people, they might retaliate. And what the village needs is peace, especially after the war and the late famines. “Father, there's reason in that. And we do need furs for the winter.”

“You can't settle here,” Father says, ignoring Arthur and pushing past the man. “And that's my final word.”

The man pivots so he can follow Arthur's father with his gaze. “You can't stop us from putting tents up. The green is communal land.”

Father doesn't heed the man and, whipping his cane left and right, he makes for the church.

Arthur's shoulders sag. He knows this isn't going to go well. Father isn't going to change his mind and neither is the man facing him.

As if to confirm that, the man says, “I won't stand down. I will fight for my people's rights.”

If Father says the Northerners are not to stay and not to be relied upon, he must have some reason. Arthur wonders which one it can be, since they, coming from further south, have had precious little contact with them. Even so, Arthur can't help but respect this man's sentiments. If he ever got a chance to lead people, he would commit to the same ideals. “I won't stop you, but my father will try.”

“I will take my chances with that,” the man says, smiling to himself. It lights up his face and it's quite a striking expression. Turning around, he addresses his people in his own language.

The group listens attentively. Half way through the speech, they stare at Arthur and he has the distinct feeling he's being talked about. When the man ceases speaking, the Northerners comment and nod their heads. Then, more or less in one body, they turn around and walk away.

Mouth a little open, Arthur stands there, watching the Northerners go. Though he should, he doesn't move for the longest time. He has no idea why. He just does. Maybe it's just the novelty of the thing. He doesn't often meet new people, not this far north, hasn't since he and his father left Stockholm behind. Maybe it's the outspokenness of the man who stood up to his father that makes him look. Perhaps, it's the solidarity among the group, all of them ready to obey their leader in a way that isn't noticeable doesn't often happen in the village councils Arthur's sat through. Either way he watches until the Northerners disappear among the market crowds.

 

***** 

Over the next week the village fills with people from all over the countryside. They've come for the market and taken abode in the wooden houses set out for visitors. This time of year the village is always teeming with farmers and traders, with trappers and itinerant storytellers, even priests.

Arthur inspects the homes himself, goes over them from solar to attic. He makes sure the window glazing doesn't let in drafts and that the hearths are solidly built. He checks on the levels of cleanliness and the number of bed-frames present.

He can't do the same for the Northerners, however. As their leader promised, they've planted their tents on the green. It's a set of six, large lavvus, made of hides and supported by forked poles forming a tripod. Children and older people dance in and out of them from dawn till midnight. At meal times, a large cooking pot sits outside them, steaming copiously, hearty broth odours wafting over across the market square.

More than once Arthur's been tempted to go over and buy food from them. The smells are generally enticing enough and the food itself looks like the kind of hearty fare that would set a man going for the day. But Arthur knows he shouldn't. He's seen their leader, Merlin, sitting outside his tent, carving strange animals with fantastic shapes and fiery eyes out of rough wooden blocks. He's spotted him in the market helping his people set up stalls. He has no wares to sell himself, but he distributes potions and talismans, words of wisdom, and prayers. Often-times, he sits on logs with his eyes closed and sinks into meditative trances that make him look only partially aware of his surroundings, with the white of his eyes showing, but not the pupils.

He has a pendant around his neck that shines whenever it catches the light of the sun. It's not a crucifix and it's not a good luck charm of the kind Arthur's seen before. There's something about it that tells Arthur it's unorthodox, unchristian, not something he wants to understand.

Even so one day when the market is in full sway Arthur stops by the Northerners' tents. As he often does, Merlin sits on a log before the entrance to one. His eyes are open and there's an easy smile on his face that advertises the fact he's not deep in one of his fugues.

“I see you've made yourself comfortable,” Arthur says, though that's not at all what he wanted to come up with or how he wanted to convey it.

“Have you come to make us do your father's bidding?” Merlin asks, cocking his head. “Because we're not decamping.”

“No.” Arthur doesn't want to do that. The law makes no allowance for such an order as the one his father's issued. Now if this group gave signs of unorthodoxy or committed crimes, Arthur would make sure they left the village. But with them being peaceful, he won't abuse his power. “I was just making sure everything's fine.”

“In other words you were keeping an eye on us because we're much more likely to cause problems than anyone else.” Merlin arches an eyebrow.

“I didn't say that!” Merlin is out to wilfully misinterpret Arthur, it seems. “I'm charged with keeping the peace and that's what I'm doing.”

“Who by?” Merlin tilts his chin back. “Who entrusted you with that?”

Arthur pulls his shoulders back. “My father.”

“I see.” Merlin arches an eyebrow. “I could promise you we will behave, but the truth is that's both demeaning and useless.”

Arthur breathes hard through his nostrils, but doesn't comment.

“Because we both know your father won't believe me.” Merlin crosses and uncrosses his arms. “That nothing will change his belief system.”

Merlin's not entirely wrong about that, but Arthur feels that admitting to it would be akin to betraying his father. So he says nothing. He picks up one of the figurines Merlin's carved. It's still rough, a work in progress. A man's head sits atop a body too large to be in any way human, with over-large hands, disproportionately wide shoulders and coarse features. A dog sits at his side, head up, tail down.

“As long as you keep your head down--” Arthur's fingers curl around the wooden base of the figurine. “My father can't kick you out. Not unless you show devotion to entities that aren't approved of.” Arthur throws a glance at the tree hanging from Merlin's neck, then he tilts up the statuette he's been turning in his hands. “What's this, by the way?”

“That,” Merlin says, trying to make a grab for the object Arthur's withholding, “is just a poor unfinished carving.”

Arthur tilts it so the sunlight catches it. “And yet it looks as though a lot of thought went into the whittling of the features.” He traces the big nose and long wild hair of the creature. “It's almost like they were carved from memory.”

Merlin snags the carving away from Arthur's hands and puts it back down on the bench it had come from. “If you want something, why don't you take this?”

With fumbling hands Arthur catches the object Merlin's shoved at him. It's a shepherd dressed in the garb of Merlin's people, with a short beard and a tunic that skims its knees. The detailing on it, the deeper etchings representing the different colour patches, gives the statuette the feel of life-like grace. “Why would you want to give this me?”

“Because I do.” Merlin's mouth quirks lopsidedly. “Just take it.”

“But I've only come to check on you,” Arthur says, thinking hard about the reasons Merlin'd be willing to give him a gift. “In an official way.”

“Still.” Merlin pushes his lips together. “I'd rather make friends than enemies.”

“I--”

“Just thank me and be gone.” Merlin's eyes shine. They've got the lustre of peace in them. He points at a clique of matrons coming their way. “I think I have customers.”

Arthur really wants to return the shepherd Merlin gave him, but Merlin is no longer paying attention to him. He's serving an old woman wanting to buy carpets and hides. Arthur considers putting the statuette back where it belongs, for he shouldn't accept gifts from people he ought to watch. But then he thinks of the expression Merlin would wear if he found out Arthur had returned his offering, how he would interpret it as a put down, a way of demeaning his folk, and the idea makes his guts twist. Arthur can't do it. Promising to himself he'll forget about it, donate it to the church, give it to some child or other, he pockets the thing.

 

***** 

Arthur spends the rest of the day in his orchard. It's frozen over and he won't see any green sprouting from the ground until spring. But that doesn't mean he can't put some work into it, that he can't cover the furrows with tar paper and straw mulch so there won't be any damage to the crops, that he can't sprinkle the low-hanging plants to keep them hydrated. It's good work, work that stops him from thinking, from having to come to terms with notions he'd rather not face.

His father is probably busy blaming him for not turning up at the lagman's house as he usually does, but this is as good an excuse as any. Father would say that such chores are beneath him, that back in Stockholm he wouldn't have lowered himself and done this. It's true; back there his only thought had been for a military career. But here things are different. Life is harsher. Things don't come easy and certainly never just for the wishing of them. Behaving the same as before seems pointless.

It's not as if Father can complain when he got them here himself.

Breathing hard Arthur puts down the shovel and takes off his gloves. That night he eats by the fireplace, guttering light reflected on the walls and chasing the shadows away at intervals. From beyond the panes lights flicker. They belong to the village homesteads, to the farmyards. They keep the unrelenting, starry darkness at bay. The wind howls like chimes and shakes the frames.

As he stirs the stew in his plate, Arthur wonders whether Merlin and his people are well. “Of course they are.” Arthur shakes his head. “They're not city people. They're used to the cold of the great northern plains.”

When Arthur goes to bed, the shepherd sits on his night stand next to the water pitcher. By the weak candlelight emanating from the one taper he left lit, Arthur reads. The book is of no interest to him, a collection of commentaries upon the law his father thrust upon him, but it helps Arthur go sluggish. Hopefully enough so he can catch a wink of sleep.

Before long he's no longer in control of his own thoughts. He walks into a forest made up of tall trees with slim trunks and limbs that make for the sky. The moon shines bright above them, shedding a milky film over paths and byways. As Arthur follows them, bright haloes surround all surfaces, bark, flower stems, bushes, rocks. The haloes gain in consistency, become less of shimmering veils moving with the breeze and more like substantial shadows. Shadows that seem to have eyes that blink against the moonlight, mouths opening in greeting, limbs waving in salute.

When Arthur comes upon a lake, the waves form into a person. It's a man, with volatile features Arthur can't pin down. They form and reform like eddies in a current. Upon seeing Arthur, the man smiles. Then he tilts his head back and looks at the sky.

Arthur's about to address him, but then clouds part and a bird descends from the sky, and Arthur holds his peace.

The man extends his arm and the bird – some kind of falcon – lands on his forearm. Once the falcon has stopped flapping its wings, the man says, “Welcome.”

While Arthur appreciates the sentiment, there's still so much that opening line doesn't explain. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“That doesn't matter.” The bird on the man's arm crows. “What matters is the reason for your coming.”

Considering that Arthur didn't get here voluntarily, this doesn't help clear matters up. “And that would be?”

The man bows his head. “Because you need to receive a warning.”

“Are you the one issuing this warning?” Arthur wishes he had a weapon on him, but he's defenceless. “Is this a threat?”

“I am.” The man pets the bird, running his fingers through its feathers. “But this isn't a threat.”

“Then what is this?”

“I'm here to tell you about what I see,” the man says as the bird fattens his feathers. “The world around us speaks to me. I know what's written in the water.”

“The water, right.” Arthur swears this makes no sense. “Can't you be more precise?”

“You'll have to stand tall and be just.” The man lets the bird hop onto his other arm. “This will be a trial but if you listen to the wind and waters, all will be well.”

This is pure and utter nonsense, Arthur's sure. “I'm sorry but that's madness. The wind doesn't speak. And there's no way to know the future that's not superstition.”

“There is if you listen,” the man says, smiling at Arthur as if he's a very small child. “It takes time to learn how to do it. But in time you will come to it. In the meanwhile, if the waters and the wind speak in a language that's unfamiliar to you, you can always seek the counsel of those who walk with us.”

“Help? What help?” Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t understand any of this!”

“You will.” The man lifts his arm and the falcon takes off. “You will in time.”

 

**** 

Arthur wakes with a gasp. Real, so real. His dream had felt as tangible as any part of his current environment, the bed, the curtains, the fire. And yet it had been nothing more than a flight of fancy of his slumbering brain. He sits up, massages his forehead, leans towards the night stand and pours himself some water. As he moves to settle back against his pillows, he notices the shepherd. It still sits where Arthur left it. It has the same shape and size, but there's something different about it, about the wideness of its eyes, the tilt of its mouth.

It's dawn, a crisp one with the sun shining pale at the base of the sky. It's not too early to go out, at least not for farmers and labourers. He's got as good an excuse as any.

Having dressed hurriedly and left scarf and gloves behind, he feels all the sting of the cold. He whizzes through the village as a result, stomping every now and then to shake off the excess snow. When he comes to the lavvus, he barely stops. He enters Merlin's tent without a by your leave, but then again, given the circumstances, he doesn't think he needs any. “You affected my dreams,” he says at the top of his voice, his arms up, his mouth tight with anger. “You gave me that shepherd and I dreamed of magic.”

Merlin, who was sleeping in a low bedroll, sits up, bleary-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about the strange creatures haunting my sleep!”

With clumsy hands, Merlin rubs his eyes. “I thought that as a good Christian you didn't believe in that.”

“I don't.” Arthur doesn't believe in ghosts and spirits and entities that aren't mentioned in the prayers he was taught as a child. “But I know you did it.”

“And what am I supposed to have done?” Merlin frowns, cocking his head to the side.

“Sent me my dream.”

“I didn't send you any dream.” Merlin pulls his blankets up his body. “I don't do those things.”

Arthur scoffs. “Oh, please, we both know that you're not just a tribal leader.” Arthur makes sure to point his gaze at the pendant around Merlin's neck. “You're a shaman.”

Merlin doesn't blink and doesn't gape. He has no ostensible reaction other than the thinning of his lips, a slight quiver at the corner of his eyes that's mostly imperceptible. “Noiade, that's the word you're looking for.”

Arthur takes it as the admission it sounds like. “So why?”

“Why what?” Merlin's eyes flash and it's like the mirror image of thunder.

“Why did you make me dream about the water man?” Arthur thinks his original question was fairly clear, but he'll spell it out if it'll make Merlin confess.

“Water man, you said.” Merlin pushes his blanket aside and scoots down the bedroll so he's closer to Arthur. “What kind of water man?”

“I don't know!” Arthur stomps in place. “I was asking you!”

“Did this water man remind you of anyone you know?” Merlin asks, biting the back of his thumb as he hums thoughtfully. “Did he say or do anything remarkable?”

“No, he didn't look like anyone I've ever known. He had no...” Arthur doesn't know how to put this into words. Whichever choice he lands upon will sound utterly non-descriptive and, well, mad. “...features to speak of.”

“I see.”

“He said something about a warning,” Arthur says, though he hardly believes he can sum up what he was told it was so vague. “And something else about me being just.” Not that Arthur ever wants to be anything other than that or that he needs to be encouraged into it. “Oh and he had a bird with him.”

Merlin's head snaps up. “What type of bird?”

“Why a falcon, a bird of prey at any rate.” Arthur says. “At least I think so. I'm from Stockholm, we didn't get to see very many of them down there.”

“Was it a merlin, perhaps?” Merlin's eyes narrow in concentration as they focus on Arthur.

“Yes, I suppose it was.” Arthur will consult a book if necessary, but in retrospect it looks as though it might have been. “Is that important?”

Merlin pushes off the bed, and starts pacing around his tent. Since it's small, he's soon come full circle and starts again. “I think you saw Thjathjeolmai.”

Arthur blinks. “Who?”

“The god who presides over waterways,” Merlin says, catching Arthur's gaze before he turns around and starts striding back and forth again. “The merlin was a conduit, a link between worlds.”

“Are you saying I took a stroll in the afterlife?” Arthur snorts out loud. “Because let me tell you, that's impossible. Even thinking that is... heresy.”

Merlin's shoulders go up. “I never said anything of the kind.”

“Oh come on now.” Arthur knows Merlin meant something by his words. He's only backtracking because Arthur went down hard on him, talked about the tenets of religion. “I know what you are and what you're not. At least be honest.”

Merlin stops his pacing. His shoulders go up and he searches the ground with his gaze. “I think you were dreaming like any ordinary man might dream.”

“But?” Arthur's aware there's one.

“I can't talk about that here.” Merlin looks fairly haunted, pale and drawn. He's searching the premises as if he thinks some kind of monster lurks in them. “Customers are coming.”

“But you will tell me.” Arthur can't stay in the dark like this. It's like wandering the frozen plains without a guide or map. “You will explain?”

“Meet me tonight.” Merlin says, pulling off his night shirt and washing his face at a basin. “In the clearing to the east of the village.”

Arthur ought to harbour feelings of mistrust. Merlin might have sent him his dreams. He might be a witch, some kind of dark weaver of magic. But that doesn't hold any weight with him. Not now. For one because he doesn't believe in witches; for another he doesn't really believe this man capable of being one. “I'll be there,” he says and if that's too foolhardy a statement, he's ready to see the consequences through. “At midnight.”

 

***** 

 

Arthur brings with him a lantern, which lights up the forest in its orange glow. As he advances, small animals scurry around, and twigs and branches break under foot. Insects crawl under leaves, over them, slithering along pathways of mulch. Darkness encroaches where the lantern-light doesn't reach; the hulking shapes of trees are smudges in the canopy of greys.

The absence of light disorientates Arthur, makes everything different and unfamiliar, hiding landmarks and the contours of the tree line. When he comes upon the clearing, Arthur finds Merlin's already there, boots deep in the snow, a cap pressed low on his forehead. He has no light.

“Merlin,” Arthur calls out, his breath misting up as soon as he speaks.

“You've come.” Merlin holds his head up, squints against the light of Arthur's lantern. “I didn't think you would.”

“I promised.” Arthur bristles. “Why would you think I'd stay away?”

“I thought you'd be too afraid.” Merlin lifts his arms up and outwards. “Your Father most certainly is.”

“I have no reason to be, have I?” Unless this is a threat, of course, and Arthur's been played. “You're here to help.”

“Your people have strange notions about my people.” Merlin drops his shoulders. “They're full of suspicion when it comes to us.”

“And are we right?” Not that Merlin's words will make any difference if his actions don't follow suit, but Arthur would like a token from the man.

“No.” Merlin smiles for some reason. “You're wrong. You just don't know our lore.”

“Right.” There might be a measure of truth in what Merlin's saying, Arthur can't judge. He's too confused at the moment and the weight of his father's words does influence him. “I've come to have an answer to my question.”

“I'm willing to give it,” Merlin says, taking a step closer and then another, until Arthur can read his features clearly. “But you must open your mind to it.”

That doesn't bode well, but Arthur nods.

“You dream walked.” Merlin toes the snow with his boot. “You visited the world beyond this one.”

“There's no world live men can walk other than th--”

Merlin looks away, scoffs. “According to your religion.”

So Merlin's admitting to not having really converted to Christianity. To Arthur of all people, the son of the lagman. That does take guts. “But yours says there's a nether world you can actually visit.” That seems highly unlikely to Arthur. To be entirely honest he has trouble picturing hell and paradise too, can barely think of them as real places; this kind of world walking appears like a wilder proposition. “In one form or another.”

“My people believe you can enter a state that allows you to travel between worlds, cross over into another reality, where you can meet the dead and the gods. We do so to receive instruction, gain understanding, solve quandaries.”

It sounds hard to believe, but Arthur can understand why people would want to put faith in such practices. “I'm not one of your people though.”

“No.” Merlin bows his head in acknowledgement. “Usually a noiade does that. They enter into a trance, an ecstatic state, and wander the worlds.”

“Assuming that's possible,” Arthur says, which he strongly doubts. “I'm no shaman.”

“No.” Merlin laughs. “That most certainly you're not.”

“Then how would you explain my dream? Arthur still refuses to call it anything other than a dream. “I couldn't have.... wandered.”

“Not, normally, no.” Merlin circles round him, leans close, his nose almost brushing Arthur's neck. “But there's something about you...”

Arthur ought to step back. He shouldn't grant this man the right to such proximity. But he has no intention to and is fine with it. No instinct tells him to recoil, put space between them. And though his heart races faster with Merlin's closeness, he feels no prickling of unease. “And what's that?”

“I don't know,” Merlin says, touching his hand to Arthur's shoulder before withdrawing it with a gasp. “Something is.”

“Very informative.”

“These things aren't easy to gauge.” Merlin's hands disappear behind the folds of his outerwear. “But I can tell you one thing. You must have been touched by the gods.”

“Your gods?” How would that even be possible? Arthur doesn't believe in them. “Why would they want to talk to me?”

“I don't know.” Merlin chews on his lower lip. “But I'd like to find out.”

Arthur would too. “How are you going to do that?”

“I'm going to sit in a trance with you.” Merlin nods to himself. “Escort you on your journey.”

“You're forgetting I wasn't in a trance when I saw the water man.” Arthur thinks he was descriptive enough. “I can't do what you ask me and I don't see how you can be in my dream.”

“You were in the closest thing to a trance.” Merlin's expression grows more animated as he talks about this. His eyes widen, reflecting the wild light of the moon, and his features smooth into a kind of feverish joy. “I can enter your dream because you saw a merlin in it.”

“The bird?”

“My totem.” Merlin lifts a shoulder as if that's obvious and of little impact.

Arthur feels the creases sculpt themselves on his brow. “So you're part of this. I was right!”

“How many times do I have to say it? I didn't cause your dream walking,” Merlin says, rolling his eyes. “But I'm sure the merlin was there for a reason. I think the gods want me to walk with you.”

“Why would they?” Why would a bunch of divinities force Merlin into this, Arthur doesn't know.

“Maybe they think I can help.” Merlin chews on the pad of his thumb. “Maybe they think you need a guide into our world.”

Considering how little Arthur knows about it, that's quite likely. “All right. Good. Let's go then.”

“You don't just go.” Merlin makes a face. “I told you, you must enter a trance.”

Merlin's sounding like he's a bit slow. “Let's do that then.”

“We can't do it now.” Merlin shakes his head and flails his hands about. “You just don't fall into a trance. You have to induce one.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow.

“And I can't do that without my drum.”

Arthur's shoulders slump. “I don't suppose you're hiding it somewhere around, are you?”

“No, it's back in my tent.” Merlin ducks his head. “And I can't fetch it now. It's too late.”

The moon has indeed begun its descent, Arthur can see. “So what now?”

“Come to my tent tomorrow night,” Merlin says.

“On what pretence?” Arthur's father will take notice.

“You'll have to settle what tale to tell yourself.” Merlin's eyes narrow. “I hope and trust you won't speak of this, of me, to anyone.”

Arthur can't believe Merlin thinks he'll report him to his father. He's asked for help, he wouldn't act so lowly as to turn his back on the man who offered it. “I won't. I swear.”

“Good.” Merlin smiles and that smile comes weighted with the burden of faith. “Meet me in my tent at dinner time tomorrow.”

 

***** 

The next night Merlin's not alone. Two women, a child, and an old man keep him company. The child, a little girl of five or six, pigtailed and pink-cheeked, sits in his lap. She pulls at the fasteners of Merlin's clothing, at his earlobe, at his hair. Merlin doesn't chide her for her behaviour. He smiles instead and nods at her mother, and chats away in a lilt. In her native language, of which Arthur knows only the bare bones, the girl asks for the rest of the story.

“I have a guest,” Merlin says, in Finnish. “The end of the story will have to wait.”

The girl pouts; her look sours.

Arthur says, “No, don't hurry on my account.” While Arthur wants to face the creatures in his dreams, he doesn't wish to put Merlin out. Besides, he's in no hurry to meet up with beings whose nature he doesn't remotely understand. “Make the girl happy.”

Merlin nods, casts his head back and hums. “Let me see. where was I?”

Arthur watches as Merlin weaves a spell on the girl. As he spins his tale, his voice goes deeper, his tone becomes dreamier. The tent's occupants sink into an attentive reverie, while the girl delights in each twist and turn of the narration. In places she gasps; in others she holds her breath. And, when the story winds to an end, she cries. Before he utters the very last line of it, Merlin's eyes glow.

That's it, Arthur thinks, Merlin's been holding all of them in a spell. But then his voice grows softer and softer and he wipes at his own eyes and Arthur knows with a certainty that spears through his bones that Merlin used no unhallowed power. The magic he wove was that of storytelling; that of his human touch, his instinct for other people, the pulse of them.

Arthur's still in the throes of that revelation, when Merlin says, “And now you should go to bed, Let, it's late for you.”

The child kisses Merlin's cheek and Merlin puts her down. Her mother takes her hand and, after having wished Merlin good night, she ducks out of the tent. The same goes for the other two of Merlin's guests. They bow and share their good wishes for the night and then in a rustle they're out .

Merlin and Arthur are alone together and the air's quite heavy with it.

“So what now?” Arthur asks, looking around.

Pushing off the stool he was sitting on, Merlin walks past Arthur and kneels before a carved chest. He takes a key out of his pocket and fits in its lock. With a squawk of hinges the chest opens and Merlin takes out a small drum. It has drawings on the batter head. At the centre a stylised sun scatters its rays outwards. People and animals made of the barest compositional elements cavort around it with other symbols dancing around at the periphery they inhabit.

Having noticed them, Arthur would like to ask what they are, but Merlin hands him a wooden cup full of a redolent liquid and Arthur's thoughts take a detour. “What's this?”

“It helps getting into the right mood for the trance,” Merlin says, with beaming eyes. “It doesn't taste that great but it truly works, honest.”

“I'd still like to know what I'm about to guzzle down.” Arthur doesn't think Merlin's outright trying to poison him, but God alone knows what's in the concoction he's just given Arthur. Depending on what it is, it might not agree with Arthur at all. “Because this isn't anything I've had before.”

“It's agaric mushroom powder distilled in alcohol, all right!” High colour bridges Merlin's nose and cheeks. “It won't harm you.”

Arthur swirls the cup, the contents lapping at its rim. Then in one gulp, he drinks it all. At first he feels absolutely normal but then his stomach warms and he grows hot all over. The blood in his veins pulses in hot streams and his skin breaks into a sweat.

“I suggest you sit,” Merlin says, drinking from the flask at his belt. “It helps avoiding concussions in case you fall down.”

“Concussions!” Arthur splutters, before Merlin sinks down next to him, sounding his drum. The noise it makes isn't loud, but it isn't rhythmical, not in a way Arthur recognises in a song. Merlin starts softly, his percussion sporadic, but by and by Arthur picks out the strands of melody, a repeated pattern. “I'm not conc--”

Weighted down by the tempo, Arthur's eyes close and, when he opens them again, he's in a clearing, grass tossing in the wind, the sun shining in a terse pastel sky. Merlin is walking ahead of him towards the tree line. He's wearing a white shirt with lines and shapes traced in ruby red. When Arthur jogs up to him, he turns around and smiles.

A finger to his mouth, Merlin nods at the forest, from which a man emerges. It's the man Arthur met before in his dream. He's swathed in white and his feet are bare, smudged with dirt round about the arch of his feet.

“Thjathjeolmai.” Merlin bows his head and kneels. “You called us.”

Arthur doesn't go on his knees, feels no urge to, but like Merlin he acknowledges Thjathjeolmai with a nod.

Thjathjeolmai says, “I have.”

Eyes on the ground, Merlin shifts. “You have a message for us.”

“Yes.” Thjathjeolmai's features relax into an almost smile. “Darkness is about to fall upon you.”

Arthur wants to ask what kind, but Merlin's voice sounds in his head, stopping him.

Merlin himself says, “The path ahead lies dark, my lord of the waters.”

“Fear the darkness of those who wouldn't commit to a shape,” Thjathjeolmai says. “Fear the blood they will shed.”

This time Arthur does step in, must. “What does that mean?”

Thjathjeolmai spears Arthur with his gaze, but doesn't speak.

Arthur feels the extent of the probe, the aura of a foreign consciousness brushing against his. It's bright but not golden. It emanates a transparency like that of air, of water. It's both light as a feather and as weighty as the earth. Arthur doesn't understand it; can't parse it, but the question still prickles at the forefront of his mind.

Thjathjeolmai says, “Beware the Stallo.”

Merlin gasps and Arthur's jaw slackens in preparation for another question, but Thjathjeolmai lifts a hand to stall both of their reactions. “Make peace,” he says. “Celebrate unity.”

He disappears like brine on a leaf.

Merlin stands, takes Arthur's hand and Arthur goes from standing in a clearing to sitting in a tent. He blinks once, twice. The floor keeps coming at him. He presses a hand against his brow, and fans the other on the beaten earth of the floor. “What was that?”

“That,” Merlin tells him, “was your second experience walking the spirit world.”

“So it wasn't a dream.” To Arthur it had felt very much like one, though it had had a whimsical, heightened quality about it. “I thought it might have been.”

“It was real.” Merlin smiles, pats his hand, looks elsewhere then at Arthur again. “As much as the warning was.”

“Yes, about that...” Arthur isn't sure he remembers it with as much clarity as he would wish. He can't even claim he understands what happened. “What's a Stallo?”

Merlin grimaces. “Ah, that.” His clothes rustle as he stands and deposits the drum back into its chest. “The Stallo is a kind of creature.”

“We're all creatures.” Arthur has a notion Merlin may be beating about the bush. “Strictly speaking.”

“All right, it's what you'd call a monster.” Merlin sits across from him, legs folded under his bulk. “It likes to eat humans but it isn't much unlike one itself.”

“Oh come on.” Arthur whistles in disbelief. “That sounds too much like an ogre to be a real thing.”

“Stallos do exist.” Merlin's voice grows thoughtful, absent. “I've never seen one myself, not in the flesh. But my father did.” He looks at the figurine he'd sculpted from wood, the one Arthur had admired on his stall the other day. “He used to say they're dangerous, monsters to beware of, but not canny.”

“So I should believe a second-hand account.”

“You should believe me,” Merlin says with a lift of the shoulders, a twist of the mouth.

Arthur doesn't doubt Merlin's veracity. There's something so simple and down to earth about him that he just can't. At the same time he doesn't discount the notion Merlin may be deluding himself. “I want to trust you in this,” he finds himself saying, in spite of how close to the truth this is, how unwise baring one's thought processes so entirely is. “But nothing I've ever encountered before in my life has prepared me for this.”

Merlin rattles out a breath and his shoulders go down with it. “I can understand that. I'm just asking you to watch out.”

“And I will.” Arthur has no idea what for, but he wants to concede as much. He owes Merlin that. “I'm just not sure whether I'm ready to believe in...”

“The other world?”

Arthur nods. “That and monsters and dream walking and...”

Merlin laughs. “It's my entire outlook on life you don't have faith in.”

Arthur bows his head. “I'm sorry. I never meant to be disrespectful.”

“I know,” Merlin says. “I know.”

“So what about the Stallo?” Merlin asks. “What are you prepared to do to stop it?”

“If it exists,” Arthur says, needing to spell out his doubt. “Everything.”

“Good.” Merlin pulls himself upright and roots in his chest. He gives him a book with parchment leaves and a hide binding. “Now let me tell you about my beliefs.”

When Arthur leaves, he does so with a sense he's gained an ally, and some deeper understanding of the workings of faith.

 

**** 

Cawing loudly the crow flies over the nave, sailing past the heads of the congregation. With a flap of wings, it settles in the embrasure behind the pulpit. Once there, it preens its feathers, searches its belly with its beak. Ignoring the bird, the priest drones on. He talks about sin, about violating God's command, the price of disobedience as described in Genesis. Arthur wonders if the priest has considered nature, the position of man in it, his relationship to the other world and other gods. But the priest never stops to discuss those points and Arthur starts to think he never will. There's no room for other tenets in his credo.

The priest's sermon is still going on, when the doors fling open.

Arthur turns. He sees a man and a woman limned by the light. They wear peasant garb, the woman in greys, the man in maroons. She twists the crucifix hanging around her neck. He's got a shepherd staff he clings to for dear life, his grip white-knuckled. “Murder,” he thunders. “I've come to denounce bloody murder!”

“What outrage are you talking of?” the priest asks, crumpling up his notes. “Why are you interrupting our divine service?”

Arthur's father stands in the first pew. “What are you talking about, man, speak more clearly!”

“A man was killed,” the peasant says. “We saw his bloodied body by the river, out by the Simojoki plane.”

“And it was no accident?” Father asks, even as he pushes past the other occupants of the pew.

“Couldn't have been,” the peasant's wife says. “The man was sliced at and hacked at.”

“Maybe a bear did him in,” a member of the congregation says. “It could have been a bear.”

Father dismisses the thought with a swipe of his hand. “There are no more bears left in the area. No.” He thrusts his chin up. “This is the work of the Northerners.”

“Father, no!” Arthur calls after him as the man stalks out of the church. Seeing as his father doesn't stop or countenance him, Arthur follows after. They cross the green and the market and come upon the Northerners' tents.

Father shouts and the customers who've gathered around them to buy merchandise disperse. The sellers protest, but Father towers over them, and then Merlin appears. “What's going on?” he asks with a smile on his face that vanishes the moment his eyes alight on Arthur's father.

Father says, “I'm here to arrest you.”

Merlin's face crinkles. “On what grounds?”

“Murder.” Father squares himself to Merlin. “I have witnesses.”

Merlin snorts. “You must be joking. I had no hand in any murder.”

“Father,” Arthur says, grabbing him by the sleeve. “The Northerners have been here more than a week.” Arthur bets on the corpse being no older than that; or the peasants would have mentioned it. “It can't have been them.”

“They could have killed the man before coming here.” Father strings up an eyebrow. “And then acted as though nothing was the matter.”  
“That's absurd.” Merlin says. Then, eyes wide with horror, he adds, “I don't condone murder. I didn't commit it and I can guarantee you that none of my people did.”

“We have a corpse.” Father moves closer to Merlin, widens his stance in an attempt to hulk over him. “That's proof.”

“Proof of a death.” Merlin compresses his lips. “Not of foul play on the part of my people.”

Arthur steps between his father and Merlin, pushing the former behind him. “Father, you can't connect the two beyond a shadow of a doubt. We haven't even seen the corpse yet.”

“We will.” Father backs away but sends Merlin a foul glance. “We will and then we will arrest this man.”

In a group, they move towards the outskirts of the town and then past it towards the grazing fields and the steppe. The river is half frozen, but the ice is clear and unsullied. They walk in a direction opposite the current and come upon a bend. A little past it, they find the corpse.

Birds have pecked at it and other animals have gnawed at its hands and nose, but even so they can tell that it wasn't them that killed the man.

They observe the body and find deep slashes on his chest and throat. Chunks of flesh here and there are missing. The cuts are deep and frayed at the edges. The blood has blackened to the colour of decayed prunes.

With a kerchief to his mouth, Arthur turns the body around, inspects its wounds. “These weren't done by any man-made weapon.”

“It doesn't signify,” Father says, stepping away from the corpse. “You can kill bare-handed.”

“A man as big as this one?” Arthur asks, pointing out the size and breadth of the person done to death. “I don't think so.”

“The Northerners may have acted in a group.” Father crosses his arms. “And thus taken this poor man down.”

“Father, that seems unlikely.”

“But not impossible.” Father tilts his head back. “These heathens have strange rites. Who knows what they needed a sacrifice for. Fact is they took a life.”

Arthur says, “That's a wild leap based on the premise, Father.”

Merlin steps in. “It wasn't one of us.” He takes in the corpse, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes full of pity. “A Stallo killed that man.”

“A what?” Father barks.

Before Arthur can stop him, Merlin says, “A creature of darkness which preys upon men.”

“I knew you weren't really a Christian!” Father shouts at Merlin, a fist in the air. “And I was proved right. You're talking heresy.”

“I am not.” Merlin holds his head back. “And I'll prove it to you.”

“I ought to arrest you.” Father grows ruddy in the face. “For treasonous action and blaspheming.”

“And risk I'm right, lagman?” Merlin says, mirroring Father's posture. “What if what I'm saying is true and the Stallo strikes again?”

“You're lying about its existence.” Father spits the words out. “And even if you weren't, that doesn't change the fact of your heresy.”

“Father.” Arthur makes a grab for his father's sleeve but he shakes him off.

“Do you really believe in your God so faithfully?” Merlin says, “that you'd have me killed in his name?”

“Blasphemy and more blasphemy,” Father thunders.

“Because I don't think you do.” Merlin shakes his head, his lip curled in distaste. “I know what faith means and yours isn't it. You're using it to get more and more power.”

“That's preposterous.” Father spits at the ground. “I'll have you arrested for your words. Don't think I can't.”

Merlin stretches his fists out. “Do.” He shakes them. “Manacle me. Lock me up in a room. Hang me. But that won't stop the Stallo.”

“Which doesn't exist.”

“And when it strikes at the heart of your village,” Merlin says without lowering his hands, “when it sullies your hearth and home, you'll regret it.”

Arthur expects his father not to back down, to do more threatening, to actually charge one of his men, or, God forbid Arthur himself, with Merlin's arrest. But he doesn't. Instead he barks, “You have a week to prove this Stallo of yours exists.”

Merlin's eyes flash. “And if I do?”

“You'll stop it.” Father answers Merlin glare for glare. “And bring me proof of its demise.”

Merlin and Arthur both watch Arthur's father tramp away, lifting snow in his wake. When he's a hundred yards or so away, his men, village councilmen and curious folk alike, start to follow.

When they're alone, Arthur tells Merlin, “We'd better find this Stallo.”

***** 

Merlin burns herbs on a brazier. They have a strong pungent smell vaguely reminiscent of incense though Arthur knows it's no such thing. It's some evergreen that Merlin's found in the wild, deep in the forest where shadows lurk. The leaves are a heady colour, slim and pointed, jagged at the ends. When the fumes they release get thick, Merlin picks up his drum.

Arthur takes off his jacket, rolls his sleeves up and crosses the tent to sit next to Merlin.

Merlin stiffens. “Not this time. I'm not looking for a benign deity.” He sits down with his legs crossed and the drum placed in front of him. “This time I shall be the only one to walk between worlds.”

“No.” Arthur clamps his jaw. “It's too dangerous. You need my help.”

Merlin smiles softly. “And that's why you can't join me, Arthur.” Merlin's gaze goes as soft as the tilt of his lips. “You're not trained for this. I am.” He rolls his shoulders back. “I'm a noiade. That's what I do.”

“That doesn't mean you're invincible.” Arthur cuts at the air with his hands in a gesture of futile protest. “That doesn't mean you need no help.”

“True.” Merlin lifts his shoulders. “And, believe me, if there was another spiritual guide around I would ask them.”

“But there's only me.” Arthur feels his body go in a slump.

“Yes.” Merlin nods and there's gentleness in the motion. “I'm not risking you in the great beyond.”

“It's up to me to risk myself.” Arthur is not a child. He understands the dangers as well as he gets that this Stallo problem must be put to rest. “And it's not for you to stop me.”

“I will exercise my noiade privilege.” Merlin starts sounding his drum, but the notes he coaxes from it are only desultory. “And keep you out of this.”

“Why!” The sound is almost a roar and Arthur's not proud of his vehemence, but he can't stop himself. “Just why?”

“Because,” Merlin says, caressing the percussion board's surface, “I care too much about you to let anything happen to you.”

“Merlin, I--”

“No,” Merlin says, sitting straighter, the rhythm he's lending the drums more pressing now. “I won't relent now.”

Arthur tries to object, but the expression in Merlin's eyes tells him his protests won't find any welcome. He merely subsides because finding the Stallo is the only way to save both Merlin and the village. He gives Merlin one sharp nod and sits across from him.

His palms flat but not rigid, Merlin beats the drum in a steadier rhythm. As he does, his gaze slides out of focus, his pupils becoming smaller and smaller, till Arthur's sure he's not really present to himself.

It's uncanny the way Merlin's there but not there. His posture is rigid; his hands continue to coax music out of the instrument sitting before him. But his eyes look sightless and his mouth has parted as though in sleep. He might as well be dreaming, Arthur thinks, though he's clearly not. He couldn't be playing his instrument if he were.

As the music grows to a crescendo, he frowns and murmurs strange words, terms Arthur doesn't understand at all. They're not everyday ones; they're mysterious formulations that rise in pitch and expand to an echo when the wind picks them up.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, but Merlin continues whispering words that dig at Arthur's skin, that rustle in his ears like the hiss of a snake.

The music issuing from the drum is now syncopated, frantic, a crescendo that fills the tent with strong vibrations. When then the tempo goes at its fastest, Merlin's eyes roll back.

As he falls backwards, Arthur starts forward and catches Merlin's limp body. His nose bleeds crimson and his eyes open wide.

As Merlin convulses in his arms, Arthur cups his face, sweeping away the blood with his thumbs. “Merlin,” he says. “Merlin, please, tell me you're all right.”

Merlin shivers, sighs, stills.

Arthur's pulse ticks up; a sharp tightening binds his chest in fast coils. “Merlin!” This time he shouts it in a voice made hoarse by fear. “Merlin!”

Pupils going back to a normal size, Merlin says, “I have him. I have the Stallo's location.”

 

***** 

 

The farm lies outside the village. It's a wooden structure, rectangular and long, to whose side a barn stands. A pig sty and other animal pens lie further afield.

The moon shining with vigour in a cut glass sky, the night is bright, crystal clear. Wolves call out from the depths of the birch forests; owls from the more general vicinity.

“He's not here,” Arthur says, scanning the area. “The Stallo is not here.”

Merlin flattens Arthur against the wall of the byre. “It is. It wants to kill the family this farm belongs to. He's only biding his time, lurking around.”

Arthur's face crinkles. “How do you even know?”

“I read the monster's intent,” Merlin says, studying the night. “When I walked.”

The world of walking is so foreign to Arthur he doesn't know what to think, how to judge Merlin's pronouncement. But that doesn't matter, for he catches a glimpse of something in the strip of darkness stretching between the house and the barn, and there's no more time for thinking.

Wishing he'd had time to take the rifle with him, Arthur draws the flintlock from his belt and raises the hammer from its half-cock position. He's just in time. A creature lumbers out of the darkness, growling under its breath. It's taller than the barn door, though not quite as wide, with a large forehead, a big but blunt nose, and a mouth as wide as an oven. “At my three,” Arthur tells Merlin, as the Stallo paws at one of the farmstead's window, its breath fogging the pane.

Merlin hisses something, the tail-end of which is, “...so easy. Stallos are magical creatures!”

But Arthur has already stepped away from the shadows and aimed. Though he made no noise, the Stallo whirls round, growling and howling. With its head down, it runs towards Arthur. Its body is so heavy the ground shakes with its every move. Snow cracks and holes open in the ground where the Stallo has passed. The air the creature displaces whips at Arthur and before he can blink the Stallo's nearly on him, hands as big as oar paddles. One eye closed, Arthur shoots in rapid succession.

The Stallo whines, yaps, and sends Arthur flying. His back impacts the compact ground and his spine burns from top to bottom. The back of his head throbs where it hit stone. In spite of the waves of pain hitting his skull, Arthur pulls up himself on his elbows. He must defend himself; he must stop the Stallo. Merlin is out there and in danger.

The Stallo, though, doesn't make a beeline for Arthur. Its forward movement has stalled and it hangs in the air, its shape changing even as Arthur blinks. Its arms extend into fur-covered paws, its legs shrink. Its flat face surges into the highs of a snout while its teeth grow into fangs. When the Stallo hits the ground, it's in wolf form.

Dripping drool, it bares its fangs at Arthur. Bracing himself for an attack, Arthur gropes the ground for his gun, but can't find it. All he knows is that if he drops his gaze, the wolf – the Stallo – will leap at him. Dirt scratches under his nails, but his hand closes on nothing.

Just as the wolf's front paw hits the ground, Merlin steps in front of Arthur. He plants his feet wide apart and puts his hands up. He stares at the wolf and the wolf eyes him right back, growling in its throat, its burring vibrating in its belly, its spine up.

When Merlin takes the knife from his belt, the wolf leaps away and takes off into the night, its sable fur backlit by the moon.

“No,” Merlin says, running after the wolf.

Though his head hurts and so does his back, Arthur heaves himself to his feet. He searches the ground for the flintlock, but he still can't locate it. “Fuck it,” Arthur says. “Fuck, there's no time..” Needing to help Merlin, Arthur dashes after him.

The plain is vast and bare. The river hems it on one side, the forest lying beyond. Merlin is a speck in the distance, a black silhouette, and the wolf Arthur can't see, only ice and sedge and grazing land.

He bursts into a run that makes his lungs feel small and his legs pump so fast his muscles cord. His breath crystallises into fast-dissolving clouds and his pants and grunts sound on the air.

He stumbles twice but picks himself up with a push of his hand.

Because the wolf zigzags, Arthur gains ground, but he still hasn't got close enough to the fleeing monster. When the animal and Merlin come upon the river, its waters scintillating into the night, the wolf turns and stops. Its hackles go up and its fangs drip saliva.

Skidding, Merlin grinds to a halt too.

Arthur pushes towards them. As much as he pumps his legs, he can't get there.

The wolf's eyes gleam gold; it growls.

Merlin stretches his arms out and slowly flexes on his knees. He picks up a long branch stripped bare by the force of the water.

In a flurry of snow and scrabbling paws, the wolf moves forward on its belly.

“Merlin!” Arthur shouts.

The wolf springs and comes at Merlin. It downs him, its front paws on his chest, its fangs coming down in a flash of white.

With a last dash, Arthur leaps forward, wrenching the wolf off Merlin before it can sink its fangs into him. He slams it to the ground but the creature bites, teeth sinking into the meat of Arthur's arm, tearing and ripping, lighting up a pain that's as fierce as a burn. The wolf's fetid breath nauseates Arthur, and, as blood seeps down his limb, Arthur grows faint. Heart pounding, he kicks and flails, pummels the beast's side with his fist. Jaw set against the flare of pain, he levers his back off the ground, trying to unseat the wolf.

Lighting up the river bank, Merlin's eyes glow. Groping for it, he picks up the branch he lost, and sits up. Before it can go for Arthur's throat, he sends the makeshift weapon hurling at the animal. It impales it and with a whine the wolf slumps, writhing and gasping its life away.

Panting, Arthur asks, “Are you all right?”

“Are you joking? I should be asking that of you.” Merlin catches Arthur's hand in his and murmurs incantations over it.

Though it doesn't close, Arthur's wound stops bleeding and stinging. It looks weeks old already. “I thought Noiadi didn't have real magic. That you were only priests.”

“There's more to our religion than you can understand, Arthur,” Merlin says.

Arthur's gaze falls upon the wolf. Its chest doesn't lift. It doesn't move. Its life has ebbed away. “What do we do with it?”

“Unless it turns back into a Stallo,” Merlin says, wandering over to it. “It won't be proof for your father.”

“So what,” Arthur says. “We let my Father hang you? Burn you?”

“I'll go.” Merlin drops his gaze from Arthur's. “When I sat in my tent up in the Northern pastures, I sensed the danger and knew I had to come here. Now the Stallo's dead, your people are safe. I've done my duty.”

“You can't go!” Fists pummel at Arthur's chest, taking his breath. “You can't mean it. I'll make my father see reason.”

“Arthur.” Merlin doesn't say anything more than that. He touches Arthur's face with his fingers though, gentle and life-giving, a language of their own.

“I will come with you, “ Arthur tells Merlin. “Into the far north.”

“Arthur, you can't want that.” Merlin stabs Arthur with a sweet glance. “You come from Stockholm, my home place would be hell for you.”

“I see.” Arthur studies the ground carefully, the imprints of their boots, of the wolf's paws. “Of course you have to go.”

“The Stallo wasn't the only reason I came.” Merlin takes Arthur'shis chin in his hand. “I didn't know what it would be.” His cheeks take on dips. “But I knew something momentous would happen to me, if I travelled south. Now I know what it is.”

“What is it?” Arthur's breath mists into the night.

“Love.” Merlin brushes a kiss against Arthur's mouth, a press that matches his lower lip to Arthur's upper one and then re-centres itself with much more softness. “That's what I think it is.”

Arthur's breath is hard to catch for the giddiness Merlin's words knife back into him. His heart expands on a powerful stutter of emotion that lashes throughout him. He's about to put the strands of his feelings into words, when a light shines to his side. He blinks and focuses in that direction.

The wolf's body glows and, as the glow expands, it changes. Fur sheds and the snout forms into a human-like jaw. The ears lose their pointedness and the teeth shorten.

“It got back to Stallo form,” Arthur says, thanking his stars. “You can stay, Merlin. You can stay!”

Arthur laughs at the skies in peels of pure, joyful relief.

 

*****

 

They build a stretcher and heave the corpse of the Stallo onto it. When the people from the farmstead wake, they ask for ropes and other tools. Upon learning they were saved from a monster, the farm people prove eager to help. They lend them cords and other utensils and Arthur and Merlin secure the conveyance with lengths of sturdy hemp and a harness.

Over the morning, they drag it back all the way back to town and to the lagman's house.

Arthur knocks on his door and Father descends the steps in his shirtsleeves.

“What is this?” Father asks, when his gaze alights on the body.

“This is the Stallo.” Arthur points at the creature, its preternatural dimensions, its barely human features, the unnatural odour its carcass releases. “This is the monster that killed the man in the river. This is the culprit you were seeking.”

Father blanches; his neck ropes. “It cannot be.”

“It is,” Arthur says, with a sweeping gesture of his hands. “You can't deny it. This is no man, but a monster of supernatural origin.”

Father paces the length of the stretcher. “This is not a creature the Bible mentions.”

“It is a creature of darkness,” Merlin says. “It is an enemy to mankind. When we caught it, it was about to kill a family of innocent farmers.”

“I'll accept that this...” Father shakes his head. “...that this abomination killed the man from the river.”

“So you declare Merlin and his people innocent?” Arthur steps forward, makes his voice loud so the town inhabitants will hear. “You state that they have nothing to do with murder?”

A muscle in Father's face jumps. “I do.” He holds up a finger. “But I still charge them with heresy.”

Arthur rolls his shoulders back and prepares to defend Merlin, but the town people protest first. It's an outrage they say. The Northerners are good traders, they mutter. It doesn't matter that they hold strange beliefs, they bring good hides and soft reindeer meat. They ought to stay.

“No,” Father says, mouth curling downwards, “they can't stay.” When the populace voices more protests, he adds, “But they can go peacefully. As they stopped the creature, I will give them two days in which to effect their departure.”

 

**** 

 

When Arthur enters his tent, Merlin is packing, putting furs and hides in his trunk.

“You could defy him,” Arthur says. “You’re innocent. The townspeople know it.”

Merlin places the item he was holding into the chest and looks up. “That wouldn't solve anything.” He crosses the tent and picks up a few parchment scrolls from a wooden ledger. “Your father would still hate us and my people would eventually come to harm.”

Arthur nods. He may not wish it so, but Merlin's right in his assessment of his father. “There's another solution.”

Merlin deposits his papers in the travelling chest. “Arthur, you know I cannot ask that of you.”

“You wouldn't be asking.” Arthur works his jaw. He's never said as much to anyone; it's never felt right before, and it's a fair to say it feels like being flayed alive, but the words must out. “I want to be with you.” Cold whips up his spine. “Unless of course you have no interest in that.”

Merlin clicks the chest shut and stalks over to him. He closes the space between them in one single, motion and places one of his hands on his arm. The other he curls around the nape of Arthur's neck. When Merlin's mouth touches his, Arthur’s heart knots tight. Even if he doesn't tell himself in so many words, he knows what this is, a passion that's as instinctual as breathing.

Arthur kisses back, dry at first, merely lips on lips. And then wetly, deep and sure, his tongue rolling under Merlin's, sucking on it. And then Merlin's mouth is gone from his, and a smile nicks the corner of his lips. “Arthur,” he says, “I want you to know that I'd be happy to have you with me.” He kisses Arthur lightly. “I'm quite yours truly. I only need you to be sure.”

Their faces hover close, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, lash to lash. Arthur can read the truth in Merlin's eyes, the calm in their depths, the laugh lines that tighten their corners. It's easy taking that step, making that leap, because he's never felt lighter than he does now. He grazes Merlin's cheek with flexed fingers; his thumb rubs down Merlin's jaw and he presses his face against the side of Merlin's. “I want to follow.” He kisses Merlin anew, their mouths grazing each other, reddening from the contact. When Merlin leans forward and into it, Arthur steps back a notch. When Merlin retreats, he darts in again, touching their lips together once more.

Merlin's mouth grazes Arthur's jaw in a shiver-inducing pass. He sucks on the skin, till it tingles with a slow bloom of an ache. He trails kisses down Arthur's throat, a multiplicity of them, sweet, open, a little wet.

Like thunder in winter, Arthur's heart pounds, squeezes and enlarges in his chest till he's fit to burst.

Merlin smiles against his neck and Arthur grunts, pulls Merlin to him, groin to groin. They both get hard; bump cocks. Letting out a stifled noise, Arthur pushes Merlin backwards towards the bedding in the tent's corner.

While his hands slip under his tunic, palm the base of his spine, he kisses his collarbone, the underside of his face, the soft side of his throat. Merlin's fingers knot in his hair and he draws Arthur's mouth back to his.

At that Arthur opens for Merlin and when his tongue darts out and finds his, Arthur loses his breath and his heart falters in his chest.

As they move past the tent's pole, they nip at each other's lips, grind against each other. Arthur gets heavy and sluggish with it, their cocks rubbing, the pulse of it an ache he can't forget, seemingly can't soothe. His hands course over the notches of Merlin's spine, over the planes of his skin, stretched taut as he flexes into their kissing.

When they hit the bedding, they strip each other of their tunics and breeches. The air is cold, with the heavy stillness of snow about it, but body to body Arthur doesn't feel it. He runs his hands down Merlin's flanks, palms his haunches, swipes a touch down his legs.

In return, Merlin maps Arthur's back with his hands, swiping them up its length and along the jut of Arthur's flexing shoulder blades. They kiss. Arthur warms from it, from the inside out, and his pulse picks up so fast he almost gets vertigo.

Merlin's fingers flex when they dig into his skin, seeking out the softness of it.

As they move, arch and push into each other, their breathing goes heavy, gets ragged with the asperity of winter.

Wildly, Arthur drops kisses on Merlin's forehead, on his cheeks, the scattering of them patternless, unchecked, passionate. They rock their hips together, Merlin's prick pressing against the muscles of Arthur's belly, Arthur's sliding between Merlin's legs, leaving trails on cording muscles.

The bedding lilting, Merlin's legs fall wider open.

Their kiss breaks, Arthur slides his hand up and down Merlin's cock and Merlin's breath hitches, shudders into rhythmic moans. 

For a few moments Merlin's hands still in their tracing and pacing of Arthur's skin, curl into near fists, but then he breaks out of his pleasured stupor and finds Arthur's cock. He pulls at it, strips it, raw, quick, merciless.

In tandem, they stutter their hips forward, into the touch of a palm, into the scrape of skin, the warmth of each other.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, his name an ache in his chest.

On a twist, Merlin's rhythm fails. He matches gazes with Arthur and the look in his eyes exudes bone-shattering love, a simple tenderness that has no fuss about it. It knocks the breath clean out of Arthur's lungs.

“This,” Arthur says. Though maybe he wasn't clear, he means that this is what he wants for his future and from now on, if Merlin only allows it.

They fumble into a last kiss, one so deep, it delves into the inside of Arthur, one that undoes him at the seams with the slow deliberateness of it.

With more intent now, at a pace made of stops and starts, bumps and smoothness, they roll their hips. They find a rhythm, clutch at each other, rub each other's cocks till they wet at the tip. 

Their thrusts chop up, become frantic, a forward jerking of the lower body that knows little rhyme or reason. With his free hand, Merlin grips him tight, his hand burning Arthur's flank, the pull of it an urging, a call Arthur doesn't want to resist. 

On a moan, an indrawn breath, they shift. Their cocks drag one along the other and against the sides of their hands. It's badly angled, a glancing touch, but Merlin comes, wetting them both. At the sight of Merlin's frown ofrelease, Arthur almost loses it. He digs his fingers into Merlin's thigh, thrusts against him in a sudden snap.

Because of Arthur's momentum, Merlin slides a notch down the bed. As his cock softens, it grazes the underside of Arthur's. From there on out, Arthur tenses with pleasure; sinks fast into a confusion of the senses, each sensation overwhelming, an onslaught on the body, the mind.

He calls out Merlin's name then, again and again, like an incantation, like a word of power, some secret magic that's already burrowed in his heart. In an attempt to silence a gasp, Arthur crushes his lips against the soft of Merlin's neck. Open mouthed, he gasps and splashes come between them.

As he comes down, he shivers and twitches in Merlin's arms.

Merlin says, “Are you sure then, that you want to follow?”

At this point Arthur doesn't need to ask for clarification. “When my father and I quit Stockholm, it wasn't because we wanted to.”

Merlin threads his fingers through Arthur's hair.“Then why did you come to Lapland?”

“My father made a political gamble the King didn't appreciate,” Arthur says, regulating his breath. “He was shown the door.”

“So it was a form of exile, taking the lagman post here?” Merlin tips up an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Arthur puts a kiss to Merlin's chest. “I came to follow my father, but there's nothing out here for me.”

“If the King has nothing against you personally, you could go back to Stockholm.”

“I could.” The possibility is out there and because of his most recent falling out with his father, it's something he'd have considered. “But that's not the path I want to take.”

“It's a hard life further north.” Merlin turns into him, wraps an arm around his middle. “It has its beauties, but it's hard.”

“I'll take it.” He fits his lips to Merlin's. “Gladly.”

In the name of this, he can forget the world, live for a future he doesn't know, but that he looks forward to. 

***** 

When they leave Ranua behind, the air is thin with the first winds of morning. Merlin's people gather up with their carts and their sleds and run a tally of their number and possessions. Reindeer carry hides and travelling bags; other items bulge in sacks and packs. Children sit astride some of the animals that are burden free. The material that went into the building of the tents lies in wagons; poles, lengths of rope, canvas.

Arthur stands on skis next to Merlin, watching the horizon.

Father doesn't come.

When the town starts bustling, Merlin asks, “Shall we go?

And Arthur says, “Yes, it's time.”

They troop out of the village and start their trek towards the tundra.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't invent Stallos. They're truly part of folkore and have also ended up in modern novels. 
> 
> If you're wondering why Arthur's from Stockholm but lives in Finnish Lapland, well, that's because Finland was under Swedish rule in 1723. I thought that as a son of the élite, he'd be from the capital. The war Arthur talks about is the conflict between Sweden and Russia known as the Greater Wrath.


End file.
